Cleveland Museum of Art

Bacchante on a Panther

William Adolphe Bouguereau

Date

1855

Medium

oil on fabric

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Part of a series of six paintings that decorated Etienne Bartholony's house in Paris, these paintings emulate ancient Roman designs. Crisp, cut out forms are set against a gold background painted in imitation of mosaic. Arion was an ancient Greek poet who escaped death by riding away on the back of a sea creature who had been attracted by the poet's song. In the companion picture, a bacchante—a female worshipper of the wine god Bacchus—rides on a panther, the god's symbolic animal. These works were shown at the 1857 Paris Salon exhibition.

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